Arbico Arbico Elite i7 RSX Price

RRP: 1349

A single point shy of the 140-point mark in our WorldBench 6 test suite, the Arbico Elite i7 RSX is one of the fastest-scoring PCs to grace our Test Centre.

Based on Intel's i7 920 processor, the Arbico Elite i7 RSX is a quad-core system that performs well across the board, whether or not you're running apps designed to take advantage of its multiprocessing capabilities.

With 3GB of RAM installed, the Arbico Elite i7 RSX offers only half the amount of memory supplied with the other i7-based PCs here. It also ships with the 32bit version of Vista Home Premium. This is fine for a 3GB PC, but if you plan to upgrade the memory, ask for the 64bit operating system (OS) instead.

Arbico's decision to employ three 500GB hard drives in a Raid 0 configuration sets the Elite i7 RSX apart from the pack. This setup provides 1.5 terabytes (TB) of hard-disk space, and theoretically offers three times the performance of a single hard drive. However, be aware that spreading your data in this way means that if one drive fails, you'll lose all your data.

The Arbico Elite i7 RSX's 24in Iiyama is one of a new breed of 16:9 displays that use the same wide aspect ratio as modern TV sets. You lose a few pixels vertically compared to a standard 16:10 display, such as those supplied with the other machines in this chart, but it's a good solution for watching 1,920x1,080 HD video at its best.

BFG's Maxcore version of the GTX 260 graphics card delivers performance similar to a GTX 280 but, importantly, it does so at a lower price. However, the Arbico Elite i7 RSX's card is eclipsed by the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 and GeForce GTX 295 cards seen elsewhere in this chart.